Valerie Jarrett’s Bin Laden Raid Veto

My article from Front Page Magazine on August 2, 2012:

Valerie Jarrett’s Bin Laden Raid Veto

By Matthew Vadum

Although taking out Public Enemy Number One would seem to be the easiest of calls, President Obama allowed key public relations adviser Valerie Jarrett to nix the military operation to kill arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions last year, according to an upcoming book.

Although President Obama’s reelection team is loudly trumpeting the dispatch of bin Laden in May 2011, saying it shows Obama’s decisiveness, author Richard Miniter suggests in Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him, that the president was anything but decisive.

Apparently Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming into action against bin Laden. Miniter’s evidence suggests the president took a long time to steel his resolve, hemming and hawing over the life-and-death decision, putting it off repeatedly over a four-month period.